Charles E. Pascal

Charles E. Pascal is an internationally respected Canadian educator with expertise in early and higher education, public policy and leadership development. With a well-noted track record as a former college president and deputy minister in Ontario, Charles has also demonstrated highly regarded expertise in strategic philanthropy. He has published extensively in the fields of psychology and education and has received extensive and diverse awards and recognitions.

Currently, Charles is Professor of Applied Psychology & Human Development at OISE/University of Toronto where he is coordinator of Canada’s first flexible delivery PhD. Program in Early Learning. As well, Charles is the Special Advisor on External Relations to the Dean, OISE. He also teaches in a PhD. program in leadership that he developed for post-secondary and community leaders. Charles is also the Senior Advisor to the Chagnon Foundation in Montreal, special advisor to Australia’s Good Start Early Learning organization, a regular contributor to the Toronto Star newspaper and conducts seminars and workshops on lifelong learning, leadership, policy-making, strategic philanthropy and strategic communications. Charles recently co-authored Too Far from Perfect: A father-daughter conversation about public education with his teenaged daughter, Tai Pascal Notar: https://www.facebook.com/toofarfromperfect

Charles graduated from the University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in psychology in 1969 and immediately joined the psychology faculty of McGill University in Montreal. While at McGill, he was a founder of The Centre for Learning and Development. He also founded the McGill Community Family Centre, a full-service child-care centre that was the first of its kind in Canadian universities. He also served on numerous community advisory boards and committees dealing with the education of disadvantaged and special-needs children. In addition, Charles headed a team at Montreal Children’s Hospital that invented a new training model to help parents support children with disabilities.

Charles has received honorary diplomas from Niagara, Humber and George Brown colleges and honorary doctorates from Nipissing, Guelph and Laurentian Universities. He is a recipient of the Yorktown Family Services Humanitarian of the Year award (2003). Charles is also a Fellow of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, was the 2008 recipient of People for Education’s Egerton Ryerson Award in recognition of his dedication to public education, and was the recipient of the 2009 “Excellence in Advocacy” award from the Ontario Coalition for Better Childcare. He was also named an “honorary” elementary school principal by the Ontario Principals’ Council (2009) and received the Lamp of Learning award from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (2015) for outstanding contribution to public education in Ontario. In 2014, Charles received the Excellence in Community Service award from the Intercultural Dialogue Institute.

A former ballplayer himself, Charles coached baseball at the University of Toronto for 12 years. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University’s Massey College and a Policy Fellow at the Broadbent Institute.